According to a report from Reuters, gaining Apple’s chip business will be a top priority for Intel’s next CEO and negotiations are already underway. The site’s sources claim that executives from both companies have discussed the possible partnership over the past year, but no deal has been reached at this point.

“After Intel upped its capital spending budget by $2 billion to $13 billion this year, speculation grew that Apple could ink a deal to use Intel’s leading process technology to make better chips for its iPad and iPhone,” Reuters’ Noel Randewich and Nadia Damouni wrote in the report. ”Doing so could help Apple end its foundry relationship with Samsung, which has become a fierce competitor with its own smartphones and tablets.”

The report also notes that Sunit Rikhi, VP and general manager of Intel’s foundry business, said last week that his group is ready to begin building chipsets for a potential large mobile customer, but he declined to clarify whether or not that customer might be Apple.